


garden

by levitate



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Aesthetic Tumblr Blogs, Flowers, Ivy League Colleges, Long Distance Relationship, Love Letters, Multi, Punk Music, Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17385230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitate/pseuds/levitate
Summary: Tyler sits in a tree.“He loves me,” he says. “He loves me not.”





	garden

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to a lot of disney music while writing this so if u wanna do that too thats cool

Tyler sits in a tree.

“He loves me,” he says. “He loves me not.”

The daisy petals are dirty.

 

One day, someone climbs the tree as pink petals float down.

“Hello,” a boy says. He is wearing a shirt with an alien on it. Tyler likes him.

“Hi,” Tyler says. “I like you.”

“Thanks!”

 

Tyler’s mom has a very large garden, and sometimes, Tyler will pick the flowers out of the ground.

Sometimes the flower petals are pretty, and other times they are dirty. Tyler picks the dirty ones so the pretty ones can stay in his mom’s garden. He lets the petals float down as he plays the silly game, over and over.

Sometimes it is windy, so the petals will fly like birds. Those days are Tyler’s favorite. He’s always wanted to fly like a bird. Maybe he’ll try it sometime.

 

One day, Josh climbs up the tree with blue hair. Tyler’s mouth flies open. He didn’t know hair could be blue.

“I didn’t know hair could be blue,” he tells Josh.

“Hair can be all sorts of colors.”

“Can it be green?”

Josh nods.

“Orange?”

Josh nods.

“Rainbow?”

Josh nods.

Tyler giggles. “I wish my hair was rainbow.”

“Me too,” says Josh, smiling.

 

Tyler doesn’t know what the flowers with the yellow petals are called, but he never picks them. Those are his favorite.

 

One day, a girl climbs up the tree. 

“Hello,” she says. Her hair is long and yellow and reminds Tyler of his favorite flowers. Tyler likes her.

“Hi,” he says. “I like you.”

“I like you too,” she says.

 

Tyler introduces Josh to Jenna when they both climb up the tree on the same day.

They like each other.

Tyler is happy.

 

“He loves me,” Tyler murmurs. “He loves me not.”

Jenna moves to Oregon. Tyler is only twelve and has no phone. He will never ever see her ever again.

Josh climbs up the tree. Josh cries into Tyler’s shoulder.

Purple petals float in the wind, but today is not one of Tyler’s favorites.

 

Josh turns fourteen and tells Tyler he is too cool for trees.

Tyler is homeschooled. Josh isn’t.

From the tree, Tyler can see the skate park. He watches Josh and his public school friends skate and yell and listen to rock music and he cries.

 

Josh comes to the tree occasionally, but only on the weekends when he is not skating with his public school friends. He tells Tyler all about them. Their names are Brendon and Dallon and Ryan and Spencer and Pete and Patrick and Joe and Andy and they all like to listen to The Clash and The Sex Pistols and The Ramones. Tyler doesn’t know what those are. He doesn’t bother to ask, because Josh never asks Tyler about what Tyler likes anymore.

The truth is that Tyler still likes picking flowers and playing silly games in trees. The truth is that Tyler likes not growing up.

 

Tyler gets a phone and a Facebook account when he is fifteen. It only takes him ten minutes before he realizes that he can find Jenna on Facebook. Maybe they can become friends again.

“Mom?” he asks, “What’s Jenna’s last name?”

“Who’s Jenna?” she says in response.

Tyler cries at the kitchen table.

 

Josh has a girlfriend. Her name is Debby.

Tyler feels something weird in his stomach.

 

They’re seventeen. Josh tells him about a website called Tumblr.

“There’s all sorts of porn on there, dude,” he says.

Tyler doesn’t know what porn is. He doesn’t ask. But he makes a Tumblr and finds there are all sorts of blogs about trees and flowers. He follows all of them. And he posts his own photos of trees and flowers, too.

 

One day, the day he reaches five thousand followers, he gets a comment on one of his posts.

It’s a photo of Josh sitting in the tree as red petals blow in the wind. It’s one of Tyler’s favorites.

**_jennaablack_ ** _ : Tyler?? Josh?? _

 

“Jenna is coming to Columbus,” he tells Josh one afternoon.

“Wait, dude,  _ what _ ? Jenna from, shit, like sixth grade? She moved in seventh grade?”

Tyler nods.

“That’s sick, man. I’m super excited.”

“Me too,” Tyler says. He doesn’t bother explaining how he found Jenna.

 

Jenna sits with him in the tree.

“He loves me,” Tyler murmurs. “He loves me not.”

“After all these years,” she says, “You still do that?”

Tyler nods.

“I never asked.” Blue petals fall down. “Who is he?”

Tyler shrugs.

“Is it Josh?”

Tyler shakes his head.

“Who is it?”

“I think I know,” Tyler says. “But it doesn’t feel right to say it.”

“Not when Josh isn’t here.”

“Not when Josh isn’t here,” Tyler agrees.

 

All three of them are together for the first time in five years.

Tyler hasn’t seen Josh cry in a very long time, but he does when he sees Jenna and Tyler sitting in the tree, watching blue petals fall down to the ground.

He sits in between them, holds hands with both of them. 

Tyler tugs out the last petal. “He loves me not.”

“Who is he?” Josh asks.

Tyler lets the stem fall, and then points to the sky.

Josh and Jenna understand.

 

Jenna stays for three more days. On the third day, Tyler kisses her.

Jenna smiles. It feels right.

Tyler picks his favorite yellow flowers, makes them into a bouquet, and gives them to her. She cries. She kisses him goodbye.

 

They turn eighteen. Josh comes to the tree every day. They sit and they watch Josh’s public school friends skate and listen to rock music and they watch rainbow colored petals fall and float.

“What colleges are you applying to?” Tyler asks Josh.

“Oh, um. Ohio State. And some community colleges. What about you?”

“Cornell, Columbia, HarvardYalePrinceton. And Ohio State.”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” Tyler agrees.

“What are you majoring in?”

“ _ Law _ ,” Tyler says, like the word was gum that he couldn’t get off of his shoe.

“You don’t want to major in law.”

“Mom wants me to.”

“Oh.”

“What are you majoring in?”

“Astronomy.”

Tyler looks up at the sky. “I kissed Jenna.”

“I broke up with Debby.”

“Why are we  _ changing _ ?” Tyler says, and leans his head on Josh’s shoulder.

“I wish I knew,” Josh replies. He sighs. “Tyler, what do you really want to do?”

“What do you?” Tyler asks, instead of answering the question.

“I want to be a drummer in a rock band. But I’m not cool enough. You?” he asks again.

“I want to sit in trees and pick apart flowers,” Tyler says with brutal honesty.

 

Tyler makes Josh a bouquet of his favorite yellow flowers. Josh kisses him. Tyler kisses back.

 

**_tylerrjoseph_ ** _ : I kissed Josh. _

**_jennaablack_ ** _ : Okay. _

**_tylerrjoseph_ ** _ : I’m sorry. _

**_jennaablack_ ** _ : Don't be _

**_jennaablack_ ** _ : Ty, it’s okay if u wanna kiss me but u also wanna kiss Josh. I’m alright with that. as long as Josh is _

**_tylerrjoseph_ ** _ : really? _

**_jennaablack_ ** _ : Course man. josh is hot. _

**_tylerrjoseph_ ** _ : He really is _

 

Tyler talks to Josh. Josh is fine with Tyler kissing him and Jenna. “She’s hot, dude,” he says.

Tyler laughs. “That’s what she said about you.”

“Tell her I wouldn’t mind kissing her, either.”

“Tell her yourself,” Tyler says. “I’ll make us a group chat on Facebook.”

Josh laughs. “Dude, you act, like,  _ old _ sometimes.”

Tyler smiles and shrugs. “Not my fault I was homeschooled.”

 

Tyler ends up going to Columbia. New York is magical. Being a lawyer isn’t. He starts to write poems about trees.

In New York, there are no flowers to pick. Tyler still looks up at the sky from the roof of his apartment building and wonders.

Josh goes to Ohio State. He drums for a band called House of Heroes on the side. Josh says they’re going to go on tour soon. Tyler promises to see a show, in New York or Ohio or wherever he happens to be.

Jenna majors in English at UCLA. She sends Tyler and Josh love letters and Los Angeles postcards every week. Tyler sends poems back.

Their Facebook group chat is active every day. Josh sends them funny things called memes and Tyler laughs at them. Josh and Jenna teach Tyler “important things” like this thing called “keysmashing.”  _ Any1 whos gay does it _ , Josh texts. Tyler believes him. He always does.

One time Tyler tries to be like Josh and sends them a meme with the minions from Despicable Me. It does not go over well.

Another time, Tyler texts the group chat and says he thinks he’s pansexual. Jenna says,  _ me too _ . Josh says,  _ I’m so proud of you. _

They agree to meet each other as often as possible. The first time is April 21st, when Tyler’s mom’s garden is in full bloom.

Josh picks them up at the airport. They kiss in the car. They go to the tree first, because Tyler and Jenna insist. Josh sits in between Tyler and Jenna and holds their hands. Tyler makes bouquets of yellow flowers for both of them. He uses another yellow flower to play his silly game.

“He loves me,” he murmurs. “He loves me not.”

Tyler tugs off the last petal. “He loves me.”

The stem falls. Yellow petals fly like birds.

Tyler feels as if he is flying, too.

**Author's Note:**

> special thanx to james for reading this at 3am and telling me it was decent  
> this originally wasn’t gonna be jenshler and then it turned into jenshler so yeah i hope u enjoyed it  
> @gojngdown on tumblr :)


End file.
